Under the Limitation Act 1980, squatters can acquire title to land by proving that they have been in adverse possession for 12 years. However, if, during the limitation period, the trespasser expressly or impliedly acknowledges the owner’s title, the limitation period will begin again. The acknowledgment must made be in writing to the owner or its agent. It must be signed by the trespasser or its agent, but need not be in any particular form. Whether a document is or is not an acknowledgment will depend upon what the document states and the circumstances in which it was written.
The decision in Allen v Matthews [2007] EWCA Civ 216; [2007] PLSCS 54 turned on the effect of a letter written by the solicitor of a company that had been dissolved. The letter was sent to the landowner’s trustee in bankruptcy as a holding response to an enquiry about the status of a caution (which had been registered to protect a contract that had never been completed because its terms were unfulfilled). The solicitor acting for the company confirmed why it had registered the caution, and enquired whether the property was being sold and whether the company would receive any money.
The landowner argued that the letter constituted an acknowledgement of title that started time running afresh, because the solicitor acting for the company had accepted the trustee in bankruptcy’s title to the land; it had not questioned or challenged itd right to sell the land, or asserted that the company had a better title.
The trial judge agreed and ruled that the letter could properly be said to be coming from the person standing behind the company. However, the Court of Appeal disagreed. For there to be an acknowledgement of title, a statement must have been made by, or on behalf of, the person in possession, which is reasonably to be understood by the owner as an acknowledgement from that person. The owner does not have to know who is in possession, and the person acknowledging the owner’s title does not have to know the owner’s identity, but the acknowledgement must be by, or on behalf of, the person in possession.
The solicitor’s letter had not interrupted the limitation period because it was not an acknowledgement of title by the person in possession. The court accepted that it should not lean in favour of a result that would deprive an acknowledgement of its intended effect. Equally, it could not ignore what had been intended and understood. The solicitor had intended to write on behalf of the company, as the party to a contract for sale and as the proprietor of the caution, and the trustee in bankruptcy would have understood that. The letter hsf plainly been written on behalf of the company as though it still existed, and it could not be construed as a letter written on behalf of the trespassers that occupied the land.
Allyson Colby is a property law consultant